The present invention is directed to a condensate drain pan arrangement for an air conditioning unit where the drain pan is positively sloped and easily removable for enhanced indoor air quality.
More specifically, an air handler for comfort conditioning performs latent cooling and includes a drain pan for catching and removing condensate. The condensate is removed to a location where it can be disposed of without allowing the condensate to initiate or enhance the growth of micro-organisms. Typically, drain pans are fixed or a permanent part of an air handler design and cannot be removed without major disassembly of the air handler. Furthermore, the drain pans are often difficult to access for cleaning of the drain pan surface. Moreover, to effectively drain the condensate, the drain pan should be positively sloped towards the drain pan exit point so that the condensate will naturally drain there for removal by a condensate line connected to the drain pan exit point.
Additionally, previous air handler designs had a drain pan with condensate connections at both ends of each pan and required a drain pan for each of the potential coil positions depending on how that coil was applied. In these previous designs, the air handler included two fixed drain pans, only one of which was used. Furthermore, each drain pan had a condensate line at each end of the drain pan to allow drainage from either end of the unit, only one of these condensate line connections being used. Thus prior designs had two pans and four connection points, only one pan and only one connection point of which were used. The remaining three connection points were plugged.